Whole30 Diary: Day 10

Here is a great chicken recipe from the Barefoot Contessa that I was able to use for three different meals last week.

Perfect Roast Chicken (The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, 1999)

5-6 pound roasting chicken

Large bunch of fresh thyme

1 lemon cut in halves

1 head of garlic, cut in half crosswise

1/4 stick of butter, melted (I used clarified butter)

1 large yellow onion sliced

4 carrots cut into 2-inch chunks

1 bulb of fennel, tops removed and cut into wedges.

Rinse chicken inside and out and remove excess fat; pat dry. Liberally salt and pepper inside of the chicken. Stuff the cavity with thyme sprigs, both halves of the lemon, and all of the garlic. Brush the chicken with the melted butter and sprinkle again with salt and pepper.

Place carrots, onions, and fennel in a roasting pan. Toss with sprigs of thyme, salt and pepper, and olive oil. Spread around the bottom of the roasting pan and place the chicken on top.

Roast the chicken for 90 minutes or until the juices run clear when cutting between leg and thigh. Remove chicken and vegetables to a platter and cover with aluminum foil for about 20 minutes. Slice chicken and serve with vegetables.

Meal 3--Chicken soup with salad greens and homemade ranch dressing. (Put the chicken carcass in a pot, add the leftover vegetables and gravy, cover with water, and boil for 1-2 hours. Strain out the solid ingredients and the broth makes a delicious soup. You can add bits of the chicken back into the broth or serve it plain.

I usually opt for using a rotisserie chicken for most of my chicken recipes; but this is even better than rotisserie and is worth the trouble. The lemon and garlic, stuffed in the chicken, plus the veggies in the pan, give the chicken a marvelous flavor and produce the most wonderful juices, or pot liquor, as my grandmother use to say.

Breakfast–3 eggs, fried in clarified butter.

I took communion at church and was expecting a tiny wafer, but they served rather large squares of pita bread to dip in the grape juice. It’s the first taste of bread or any kind of grain I’ve had in 10 days. Hope it won’t slow my forward progress.

Lunch–cashew chicken salad; tomato; chicken broth

Snack–guacamole dip with carrots and celery; cashews

Dinner–steak; tossed salad with homemade ranch dressing; roasted plantain chips. We were celebrating our granddaughter Charlottes birthday and I had bought some Gigi’s cupcakes for dessert. It was hard, but I had a cup of black coffee while everyone else had cake and ice-cream.

Got my 10,000 steps on Fitbit

I’m 1/3 through the Whole30 program and thinking this is probably the hardest part. My kitchen is stocked with delicious natural foods, I’ve learned some fantastic recipes, have met the challenge of eating out and special occasions, and I’ve really suffered very little hunger. Of course, I have not counted calories at all, and that may be why the weight doesn’t seem to be coming off very fast. I do feel wonderful, with less joint pain and more energy. In the next 20 days, I’ll focus more on food portions and calories. But I promise I won’t step on the scale again until day 30!